Die Stimme in der antiken Rhetorik

“Now Quickly, Now Again Slowly”: Tempo Modification in and Around Praetorius

“…The origin of the phrase "now slow, now quick" lies in ancient rhetoric where the requirement for the orator to vary his delivery is described as vicissitudo, variatio or commutatio. 60 Similar wording is found both in Cicero ("cita tarda"), 61 and Quintilian ("spatiis quoque lentioribus aut citatioribus"), 62 and features frequently in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century poetry and literature describing musical performance or the effects of music. It is used to describe the performance of a solo singer in the well-known letter from Angelo Poliziano to Pico della Mirandola (1488).…”

“…86 "Also daß der erste Cantus gar frisch und starck/ der andere etwas stiller/ und der dritte gar gelind tactus", tempo and dynamics are mentioned next to each other in ancient rhetoric. 87 When describing the practice of "uttering softly and loudly or fast and slow, or changing the measure in keeping with the words", Vicentino explicitly mentions orators as a model. 88 In 1628 Vincenzo Giustiniani writes that, in contrast to the crude style of the past, singers in the new recitative style apply "now piano, now forte, now adagio, now presto".…”